Wigan care home at centre of investigation is blasted by client

Moya Platt shared a lengthy list of complaints about Cherish UK’s care of her husband Cliff, who has a brain injury and is visited by employees twice a day.

The provider is currently being investigated by Wigan Council and the watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is also aware of the probe.

Mrs Platt has now come forward to criticise strongly the culture at Cherish UK, saying there are problems with untrained staff, a massive employee turnover and a lack of action when concerns are raised.

She said that some of the carers are so inexperienced she has been forced to do the work herself and said cuts also now mean one person is frequently sent when there should be two.

She said she was forced to accept Cherish UK visiting their Atherton home to get Cliff up, showered and dressed in a morning and then put back in bed later on in the day when the council organised a shake-up of care so each provider would work in a certain area of the borough.

She had been reluctant to accept the company again after previous bad experiences and says that things have recently gone downhill after a promising initial period.

Mrs Platt, of Hillside Avenue, said: “Cherish UK is bad. They send you somebody who’s started that day to help a person with complex needs.

“Cliff isn’t easy. He’s got a brain injury, he has no speech and has short-term memory loss so unless carers have been coming a long time he doesn’t know who they are. He’s a big man and he will often resist what people want him to do.

“They’ve been in here for about 14 months now. It wasn’t too bad at first but things went downhill months ago. At weekends they are like headless chickens, they don’t know who’s going where and you end up with no carers.

“I feel sorry for some of the carers. They turn up and you can tell they haven’t got a clue what to do with Cliff. Some of them can’t have been more than about 18.

“The carers come and go like wildfire. I’ve had them turn up at the door to care for Cliff, drunk. They get hired and then they are out in the community with no training at all.

“They also send single carers to jobs where they are supposed to double up, so I end up being the second person helping Cliff. Carers have told me it’s a nightmare for them because they are on their own when they shouldn’t be.

“You ring up the office and they put the phone down. I’ve told them there are certain carers I won’t have in the house and they’ve still sent them anyway. It felt like they were trying to show me up. I arranged a face-to-face meeting with the manager once and she didn’t show up. She only apologised when I emailed her. It’s not good enough.

“I didn’t want Cherish in the first place. We had them for about six weeks when Cliff came home from hospital a while back and it was a nightmare. This time I had another provider for a while but then in their wisdom the council changed everything around. Now it’s chaos, especially at weekends.”

Cherish UK was approached but did not wish to comment. The council was alerted to the firm by a whistleblower.